Airlines to increase capacity during British Airways strike

British Airways union, Unite, confirmed it is open to resuming negotiations with the carrier, after announcing plans yesterday for strike action in four blocks of five days, from 18-May-2010 through to 09-Jun-2010 (Bloomberg, 11-May-2010).

• Airline responses: bmi plans to add capacity on certain routes on its international and domestic networks during the strike action, including services from London Heathrow to Aberdeen, Berlin, Cairo, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Jeddah, Manchester, Moscow, Riyadh and Vienna (Travel Mole, 11-May-2010). Flybe also announced (10-May-2010) plans to increase capacity on services to London Gatwick, Newcastle, Southampton, Jersey, Aberdeen, Frankfurt, Birmingham, Manchester, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Dusseldorf during the action. [more]
• Government responses: UK's Conservative Party urged BA and Unite to resume negotiations (telegraph.co.uk, 11-May-2010).

Conservative Party: "Given the politically and financially unstable times we are in, the last thing passengers want is to be held to ransom by the threat of a summer of strikes. I would urge the two sides to do all they can to avoid creating further disruption to the travelling public," Theresa Villiers, Transport Spokesperson. Source: telegraph.co.uk, 11-May-2010.